I don’t know about you, but I never felt like I fit in. In early recovery I heard things like “I was on the outside of the fishbowl looking in” and I totally got it. I can still feel that way, but less so now that I’ve met and stay close to other addicts. Am I different from others? Or is it just in my head? And why do so many of us feel that way? 

For me, it started at a very young age. I transferred schools between kindergarten and first grade to a school that was kindergarten through eighth grade. And for eight years, I felt different than the students that had been there in kindergarten. My mom wore hearing aids, we had less money than some of the other kids, and so on. Bottom line – I felt different, and I’m sure that I would have looked to anything as the reason why. The situation could have been reversed and I’m certain I still would have felt like an outsider. I didn’t have the ability to reason or understand that the problem was in my head the whole time. In fact, the problem was my head. 

I have so many thoughts. So many that it’s isolating. My mind churns constantly, relentlessly and mostly negatively. This barrage of thoughts gets me stuck in my head, which creates a feeling of separation because I’m not present. If I’m not present, I can’t be connected to you or life. And I’ve spent much of my life this way. I wonder why I can’t remember large chunks of time or events or people I’ve met, even in sobriety. It’s because I was there in body, but not in mind. I was stuck in the old thinker, rather than focusing on what was happening around me. 

I’ve talked about this before – it’s part of the reason people think we are so selfish and self-centered. It’s not because I want to be, but because I’ve got a lot going on between my ears and I just can’t get past the chatter to think about someone or something else. 

When I get caught up in my thoughts, I leave the present. I leave reality really. And I start to feel different – separate. When I was young, sometimes I seriously considered if I was an alien. Or accidentally born into the wrong family. I just couldn’t put my finger on why I was different. And what’s really interesting is that I just knew I was different. But how did I know that? On some level it must have been intuitive because I had no other experience to compare it to. 

And feeling different led me to feeling less than and ultimately unlovable – which I believe is the root of my addictions. To combat this feeling of difference and separation, I did everything I could to hide the “real” me and be who I thought you wanted me to be. And by the time I found alcohol, which quieted my thoughts considerably, I was desperate for a solution. 

So now in sobriety I have to learn ways to calm my mind and stay present. I do that mostly through meditation. I also have come to terms with being different from my normie counterparts. What helps the most are the connections I’ve made with other alcoholics. Knowing there is a group of people out there that think and feel like I do is so comforting. It allows me to learn to like myself as I am. And, not for nothing, the longer I’m sober the more “normal” and part-of I feel. I’m much more grounded and present, which naturally eliminates that feeling of separation.